Queen Cobra
by LisaAbiona15
Summary: As soon as he saw her, locked into a cage with a collar, he knew with every fiber of his being that it was Wrong. She might be nothing but the worst part of his mom but does that truly mean she should be locked up like that? Perhaps instead of her darth vadering him, he can Luke Skywalker her (hopefully, without her dying) At the very least, he knows a hero would try to help.


**I don't own OUAT.I have wanted to write some regal believer forever, but first I didn't have ideas and then I did, but I didn't really have inspiration or anything until today, where I was like " DO THIS THING NOW JUST WRITE YOU WEAK ASS'**

 **[even though I have other stories that I really want to work on oops. But then again Regal Believer is the most important thing , so it takes precedence]**

 **One last thing: I have yet to see Star Wars ( if I ever have time, I will). So my knowledge on it is limited and my source for the whole 'luke Skywalker her' thing is wiki/Funeral_of_Anakin_Skywalker.**

 **Also, is the title as bad as I think it is? (it is late and I am tired and I couldn't think of a good one, sorry)**

He can't sleep.

It isn't just that his moms are still missing, that is not as worrying as one might expect. He knows they will protect and care for each other. And if the last years had taught him anything, it was that his moms were an unstoppable force together. So yeah, even if he misses them and it sucks not being able to help him, tonight it is something else keeping him awake.

 _The Evil Queen. What if it is painful to be a snake? In Harry Potter, the transformation from human to werewolf hurts a lot. What if this is like that? And this was forced._

He feels a little nauseous at that last part. Someone forced her to be stuck like this, in a cage. His mom has tried to protect him from her past, but she has told him some things (like her meeting with Daniel, which almost hurt listening to). One of the things he has discovered, is that for a period of time , she felt horribly trapped. _And now she- or at least a part of her- is trapped again, in a cage and all alone._

He shivers as his feet touch the cold floor. He has not even consciously made any decision to get out of bed, but he just knows that he will be wide awake and feeling terrible all night if he doesn't at least check on her. Besides, he has been bothered by this for hours already. He has stared at the ceiling for such a long time that he could tell someone exactly where there are cracks or discolouration's.

He puts on his slippers, then pushes open the door. At the threshold, he stops and returns to his room for a moment. He grins as he grabs the flashlight he keeps on the nightstand. Good thing he didn't forget it at his mom's.

He creeps through the silent (apart from what could be either of his grandparents' snoring.) apartment , keeping his hand on the flashlight to dim the brightness a little (while still enabling him to not like trip on Neal's toys that are scattered around the room). He turns off the flashlight as he is next to the bed where at least one of his grandparents is not in a sleep that is cursed, but one that they could definitely wake up from and get him into trouble. Possibly. He doesn't really know how they would react.

She is beneath the bed, the cage she is in still covered. He doesn't hear hissing or anything, so maybe she is asleep. He just hopes she won't start making noise as he takes her with him. He hesitates, then removes the blanket covering the golden cage.

He actually feels his heart squeeze: her head is bend, she is kind of curled up on herself. She looks tiny and far more vulnerable than a poisonous snake is supposed to.

She raises her head at the moment he reaches for her. She seems scary for a moment, taking on that stance he has sometimes seen in documentaries that show cobra's hunting or around people. Then she deflates and sidles closer to the bars, until she is pretty much resting her head against his hand.

He gives her a feeble smile, then slowly removes her from the bed. He presses his finger to his lips- _please don't wake up whoever is snoring_ \- then sneaks back to his room. When he is halfway there, he turns on the flashlight again ( smart, because one second later he can narrowly avoid tripping on a toy car).

As soon as the door of his room is closed, he tosses the flashlight on his bed and gentle puts down the cage with the evil queen in it on the bed. He sits down , crossed-legged, in front of it.

He studies her for a while. She has raised her head mostly now, just looking at him. She is really close to the bars, hissing something. Somehow, it doesn't sound threatening or scary- he would almost say it sounds pleading.

But that might just be him ( him and _she hates being trapped. If she is anything like mom , then she absolutely loathes being trapped_ )

He hesitates, then whispers one of the many questions he has had ever since he discovered what happened to her. "Are you still able to understand us?"

She seems to be nodding. " I am going to repeat the question, to be sure okay? So are you still able to understand people when they talk? ".

She nods again.

" Are you still in possession of your mind? It is not like you are suddenly going to become like a _true_ cobra, right?".

She nods, then shakes her head. He exhales in relief. " Good. That's – ".

He is silent for a while, she hisses something. " You do realize you are only hissing, right? I mean, I am not a parselmouth".

Even when she was in snake form (and also not really his mom, right?) Regina Mills had the same Henry-Daniel-Mills look. He is pretty sure that if he _had_ been a parselmouth , that he would have heard her admonishing him. He still would've found it totally cool (as long as it didn't mean he was like evil) to be a parselmouth, but he was kind of happy not be able to understand her right now.

"You know , we do have to discover a way to communicate…" he think for a moment. Then shrugs. " What about you hiss for 'yes' and you keep silent for 'no'. Would that work?".

She hisses. " Great! ".

" So.. are you hungry".

Silence.

" Because if you are, we probably need to go to a pet store. Do you think they have lizards there ?" He sometimes watches documentaries and there was one in particular that had a cobra hunting a lizard. It was kind of awful to watch, but any lizards in pet stores are bound to already dead- it is not like he will have to feed her anything alive. Right?

More hissing, but he is pretty sure she is just insulted and not actually saying 'yes! Yes! Yes!' . He sighs. " It is not like we can take you to Granny's for a salad, snakes are carnivores".

More hissing. "Listen, we are not going to let you _starve._ And we are also not going to give you food that poisons you".

She is silent and somehow, he guesses that she is thinking of all those years back, of seeing him in the hospital and knowing it was her that caused it. " It wasn't like a barb, I know you did not mean to hurt me " he says, even if he still gets mad when faced with the new sleeping curse on his grandparents' shared heart. Even if she deserves to think he blames her ( and he kind of does, because it was the evil queen part of his mom that decided to poison ma)

She rests her head against the bars, like she is reaching out for him. He pretends he doesn't know what she wants, because _does she deserve instant forgiveness?_. Instead, he gets up for a moment to get his phone, ignoring her hissing ( how can hissing sound worried anyways?) and sits down again.

He shows her the phone. "I am going to do some research. I need to know what kind of species you are in order to know how to take good care of you".

He studies her. " Do all cobras have a hood like that? Perhaps you're a king cobra, I once saw one in a documentary and it looked vaguely like you".

He google searches 'king cobra' , then 'black king cobra'. He holds his phone next to her. " I don't know.. can you like rear up?".

She does, as much as she is able in the small cage anyways. He looks at the picture again, it could be but- " I really don't know for sure…".

"Oh wait, there is an article!". He quickly clicks on it, then scans it . " Okay, so king cobras are gargantuan- the average size is supposed to be three metres – they have light coloured bands across their body and they do have hoods".

"Do you think you are a king cobra?".

She hisses. " Okay, you could be. But I just want to check".

It turns out, identifying cobra species is near impossible. There are at least twenty different cobra species, that have hoods and look slightly like the irate queen that is starting to hiss more and more- even though they've long established he isn't a parselmouth- and she could be a cape cobra( though the black ones he has seen pictures of don't really look like her ) and she could be-

He finally caves and goes to a site that just talks about cobras in general. " So here is the plan- " he interrupts himself to glare at her and mutter "Will you stop hissing, you are going to wake someone!" when he is fairly certain she will remain silent, he continues " This is the plan. This site says cobras like birds, fish, frogs, toads, lizards, chickens, rats, rabbits and eggs. Whatever is easiest to get, is what you will eat okay? "

She is silent. " You know, I could always just give you to grandpa and see whether he bothers to feed you!".

He starts to stand up, already reaching for the cage when she hisses softly. The cage moves forward as she sort of throws herself against it. "What are you even attempting to do?".

But it looks kind of funny, so he laughs softly. She stops and hisses softly again. He sighs, is silent for a while. Stares at his hands. " Has granddad or grandma been feeding you?". It is not what he actually wants to ask, but it is important to know, so.

He had lasted like one and a half days (and one sleepless night) before finally approaching her. She would hiss whenever he walked by and try to get closer to him. There was this one particular time where she was acting pretty crazily and grandpa actually pulled him back, using his own body as a shield for Henry. But he hadn't reacted, because whenever he felt empathy , he only had to glance at whichever of his grandparents was 'sleeping' and remember that burning room to steel his resolve.

He had been trying to ignore her, but he couldn't help sneaking glances at the cage- that was almost always covered- and noting that for a murderous queen-turned-cobra , she didn't really look that threatening. Now, he is trying to remember whether he has seen either of his grandparents giving the snake anything ( he cannot. He can just remember a tearful grandma listening to grandpa's recorded explanation. And discussing new plans. And patrolling. But not getting anywhere).

She is silent, so he thinks- " Wait , so you haven't eaten in almost two days?".

He feels like someone has punched him into the gut. "You could've died" he exclaims and suddenly misses his moms ( and especially Regina) more than ever. He tries to calm himself, _Snakes are supposed to be able to live on a meal for months, right?_ But- " How much of you is just human and how much is snake?" he wonders.

"Do you feel like you are starving right now?".

Silence. " Okay. I still think it is better if you eat something tomorrow though. Is salmon okay?".

Hisses.

" I will get you some then" for a moment, he briefly thinks of keeping her into his room, close to him. But this isn't his mom, who used to fall asleep reading (or telling) stories to him sometimes. This isn't his mom, who kisses his forehead after protecting his heart with a spell. This is the woman that sends kids into houses that belong to child-eating witches. This is the woman that makes his ma vanish.

Still, it is more difficult than expected to not at least leave the cage in his room ( it is even difficult to not let her out of the cage) . It gets easier when he imagines his moms hurt , lost in a strange land, or her hands on his shoulders as she presses him to hurt an innocent.

Finally, he grabs the cage. He almost drops it as she suddenly rears up and hisses. If he was anyone else, he might think she was about to spit venom (which reminds him – _I shouldn't forget to do something about the venom she has. You have to milk snakes or something, right?_ ) but instead he thinks she might just be telling him to keep her, here.

He cannot imagine her being even remotely okay with being locked in that cage all that, presumably kept under the bed all day and night, never talked to or – as far as she knows- even looked at. In fact, he doesn't even know whether he is okay with it.

Fine, he does know he isn't okay with it but that is just because she looks so much like his mom. And sometimes acts like his mom – when it is about gestures or tone of voice or like he sometimes thought he saw that same loving gaze directed at him.

But she isn't his mom. _She is just the part of mom that is the worst, right? That is what it was like in the book._ That is the thing though. The fairy tales never turned out to be like he heard, even if there were important parts that stayed the same.

That is why it is so difficult now to actually place her beneath that bed again. Her hissing doesn't help either; it just makes him think of all the awful things she might be saying. He quickly sneaks back into the room, places her back under the bed- there is this one particularly awful moment where he swears she looks sad- and covers the cage again.

" I will talk to you tomorrow" he whispers, as close to the cage as possible so that she can still hear him.

Back in his room, he still doesn't fall asleep easily or immediately. There is so much (and too much of it horrible) to think about. Even his thoughts have to shut up sometimes though and just when he actually wants to grab his phone to research 'how to milk a snake's fangs' his eyes start to slip closed and before he knows it, he is asleep.

In the living room, an evil queen feels something that has become unfamiliar by now. She is used to people getting stuck on the first part of her name, never caring to look beneath the surface, to ask why she became like this.

She isn't used to having hope anymore.


End file.
